US State (A’s) GOP just updated their platform to include the following: a penalty reduction for possessing less than an ounce of marijuana (these offenses will now be civil, not criminal, charges, payable by a fine of no more than $100), expanded access to medicinal marijuana (giving doctors the ability to determine the appropriate use of cannabis), urging Congress to remove cannabis from the list of Schedule 1 drugs, and a call to pass legislation for the increased cultivation and sale of hemp. That’s a pretty progressive hypothetical state, huh?

Then you have US State (B), which just increased its marijuana-related arrests by more than 20 percent between 2016 and 2017. US State (B) also finds itself in the top six states in the country for marijuana-related arrests, even though eight out of ten state citizens support decriminalization of marijuana.

I lied. This isn’t a hypothetical situation. One of these states is Virginia, and the other one is Texas. Take a guess which state is which.

Bad news it is, Virginia.

The Commonwealth’s state legislature is officially more antiquated than the Texas GOP – top marks. And the cherry on top? Texas Republicans followed the same Virginia model, which allows doctors to determine appropriate cannabis use for their patients, and is now effectively leaving the Commonwealth in the dust.

Virginia NORML (National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws) Executive Director, Jenn Michelle Pedini, is the Commonwealth’s brain trust regarding all marijuana legislation in the state, from the painfully frustrating to the optimistically hopeful.

Let’s start with the frustrating first. Unlike states such as Colorado and California, which have passed marijuana legislation through voter initiatives, Virginians will have to pass marijuana legislation through the legislature.

“It’s not the governor, it’s not the bill sponsor themselves,” Pedini said. “It really comes down to the Senate Courts of Justice Committee and the House Courts of Justice Committee. And in the House there’s a subcommittee called House Courts of Justice Subcommittee One, which most know as the House Criminal Law Subcommittee. That’s the sticking point. That’s where marijuana reform goes to die.”

Pedini goes on to say that she hopes Republicans would want to get out in front of the decriminalization issue in 2019, but sees the drive to do so isn’t there. Nonetheless, there is a reason to be hopeful as voters look to 2020, which Pedini believes will be the year that sweeping changes and progress are made.

“The general idea is that we can do it in the 2019 session and Republicans could have that win, or we could do it in 2020 legislature, which is going to be a vastly different makeup,” Pedini said. “It’s almost a no-brainer. We’re going to see candidates campaign much more heavily on marijuana policy reform, both at the state and the federal level.”

She feels confident about marijuana reform in 2020, as she predicts there will be a much younger legislature. “Regardless of which party is in control, we’re going to have younger folks in office,” Pedini said. “The reason why we don’t have the reforms that the overwhelming majority of Virginians demand for is simple: Virginians continue to reelect the same conservative prosecutors to represent them in the General Assembly, and those folks are unwilling to move on this issue.”

Pedini discussed the not-so-hypothetical scenario in a very real Virginia, in which law enforcement arrested 27,852 people for marijuana-related offenses in 2017, up by almost 6,000 arrests from the previous year. “While the rest of the country is drastically decreasing their marijuana enforcement either because of decriminalization efforts at municipal or state levels or because of regulating use at the state level, Virginia is moving in the opposite direction,” Pedini said. “And that is not at all in context with what the overwhelming majority of Virginians want.”

Additionally, there are enormous financial benefits can come from state-regulated marijuana sales. Pedini mentioned Pueblo County in Colorado, which is using tax money from marijuana sales to help students pay for college. Pueblo County Commissioner Sal Pace told the local CBS-affiliate station that only a few years ago, “These are dollars that would have been going to the black market, drug cartels. Now money that’s used to fund drug cartels is now being used to fund college scholarships.”

For Pedini, the financial side of regulated marijuana sales is an obvious bonus, but there is a greater concern. “I think more importantly than the tax incentive around regulated marijuana sales is the public safety that comes with regulated sales,” she said. “What we are saying as a state with every year that we don’t regulate the sale of marijuana is that we would prefer drug dealers be the regulators of this industry. We know that drug dealers don’t I.D. before they sell marijuana. We know that in states that have regulated sales of marijuana, they do.”

Virginia seems to have a disorder where no amount of research or facts can break through. “There’s not a lack of data of what happens with states post-regulation,” Pedini said. “We have that in abundance now. It’s more the ability to maintain the current systems that currently profit from maintaining marijuana as illegal. It’s an easy arrest. It’s a way to search people’s cars and homes. Notably, its a way to funnel a significant amount of dollars into the state’s substance abuse program.”

Another inconvenient truth from the 2017 Virginia State Police report? African-Americans in Virginia are arrested for marijuana possession at a rate that is more than three times the rate of whites. Unfortunately, the ACLU has found in their research that this isn’t just a problem in Virginia. Nationally, blacks are 3.73 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana than whites despite usage being equal between races.

Pedini also discussed the state’s substance abuse program, as it is inexorably linked to the national opioid crisis. She said that in Virginia, “Marijuana possession alone is enough to have you ordered to rehab” if you go through the first-time offenders’ program. “Sadly, you’re going to take up the space in that program for someone who has an opiate or heroin use disorder,” she said. “We could immediately double access to treatment for opiate use disorder by ending the courtroom-to-rehab pipeline for pot possession.”

Pedini said predicting what we will see in Virginia in ten years time is difficult since it depends so much on how federal policy shifts and who controls the state legislature. “A shift in federal policy, regardless of controlling party, is likely enough to push Virginia in the direction of regulating adult use,” she said. “We take a lot of money from the federal government and we’re never going to do anything that inhibits our ability to receive those federal dollars.”

Finally, when asked what we as citizens can do to bring this change more quickly, Pedini bluntly stated, “Vote” before the question was even finished. Is it really that simple? Yes.

“If you keep re-electing people who don’t support the reforms you want, you aren’t going to get the reforms that you want,” Pedini said.

If your priorities line up with the work that Virginia NORML is doing, there’s only one thing to do this November: get out and vote. Find out which candidates support marijuana legislation reform in Virginia and make your voice heard.

Charlotte Figi was three months old when she first started having seizures. By age two, she began having seizures so severe it resulted in the loss of motor ability. After a series of grueling and rigorous tests, she was diagnosed with Dravet Syndrome, a rare and severe form of intractable epilepsy according to CNN’s report. Charlotte’s family, based in Colorado, was on the verge of giving up before a specific treatment became available one offered the chance for their daughter to live a normal life.

After a change in medicine at the age of six, her attacks decreased to two to three times a month, down from 300 a week, and she was even able to ride her bike and feed herself. And what was the medicine that helped Charlotte so much? The oil extracted from cannabis or marijuana.

Here in Virginia, as the laws currently stand, only patients with intractable epilepsy are able to offer their illness as an affirmative defense in court. For everyone else who could potentially benefit from cannabis extracts — those with cancer, multiple sclerosis, and Parkinson’s, the use of cannabis oil as a medical treatment is still deemed a criminal offense.

“We had pieces of legislation in 2017 that sought to expand patient access and all five of them were tabled in the House Criminal Law Subcommittee,” said Jenn Michelle Pedini, Virginia’s NORML Executive Director.

Recently, though, on Oct. 17, Virginia’s Joint Commission on Health Care released a 93-page report on the medical use and health effects of cannabis. This report was issued in response to a request for scientifically-based clarification about the healing properties and psychoactive effects of cannabis extracts, which can now be legally manufactured by pharmaceutical companies with the passing of Bill SB 1027. This bill authorizes, “…a pharmaceutical processor, after obtaining a permit from the Board of Pharmacy (the Board) and under the supervision of a licensed pharmacist, to manufacture and provide cannabidiol oil and THC-A oil to be used for the treatment of intractable epilepsy.”

However, until the Board of Pharmacy amends the licensing processes for this to take place, these patients will still have to travel to states where it is legal – potentially committing “drug trafficking” offenses to obtain them.

Now I’m not making the claim that smoking marijuana is a “cure-all” for all illnesses as some die-hard enthusiasts claim. What I am claiming is that extracts from marijuana have scientifically proven medicinal benefits, and that must be considered by our policy makers and legislators.

Marinol, which is a full strength synthetic THC — THC being the primary active chemical in marijuana — comes with some side effects, including dizziness, confusion, and the “high” feeling one gets when normally smoking cannabis. Yet, it is available by prescription in the state of Virginia.

The reason for these undesired effects is that it doesn’t have the terpenoids – chemicals that are responsible for giving the plant its distinct scent – and complementary cannabinoids – like THC, there are 113 of these active chemical compounds that are responsible for interacting with neurotransmitters exhibiting the psychoactive effects associated with cannabis. Both of these naturally occur in marijuana and are able to mitigate these side effects. Without them, Marinol can present more harmful side effects than actual CBD and THC-A oils.

And if a synthetic version of an extract has been proven to be more harmful than the actual substance, there should be no logical reason to make that substance illegal.

This issue of medical marijuana derivatives has been polarizing in the past. However, a recent Quinnipiac poll shows that an overwhelming 92 percent of voters support medical marijuana when it is prescribed at a doctor’s discretion. Hell, 64 percent of the nation even supports recreational use of marijuana.

So what’s the hold-up?

Pedini relayed to me a variety of information on the current state of Cannabidiol Oil Laws (COL) in the Commonwealth. According to her, the delay in legalizing the wider medical use of cannabis oils is due to the those who profit from archaic and failed views on the war on drugs.

“There are certain industries that benefit from maintaining the status quo,” said Pedini. “That is primarily {those} who lobby not only against marijuana reform, but other types of criminal justice reform [as well],”Specific industries she’s referring to here include the substance abuse management industry, law enforcement, and some legislators that take campaign contributions from these industries. Pedini went on to say, “A lot of these legislators are prosecutors or criminal defense attorneys, and they view marijuana law infractions in a much different context than someone who concerned about medical access does.”.

It’s disappointing (to say the least) that these individuals fight to retain control over a system they helped create, even when it means preventing chronically ill people from receiving much-needed care and relief. A common claim by the opposition is that these oils can be used as an excuse to get high. However, the JCHC report admits from the outset that CBD contains no intoxicating properties.

It is psychoactive by nature, as are most drugs, but psychoactive merely means altering your brain function. With CBD oil, that’s as far as it goes, stopping well short of any intoxicating effects. THC-A also does not have intoxicating properties on its own, but a normal 15 percent THC-A dose can be overheated to reach 5 percent THC. This sounds like a cause for concern, but SB 1027 already allows up to 5 percent THC in medications for children with intractable epilepsy.

“There’s no particular need for Virginia to roll it’s already hyper-restrictive program backwards. That doesn’t serve patients, it doesn’t serve public safety — it doesn’t really serve anyone,” said Pedini.

This is not to mention that obtaining THC-A just to get that 5 percent of THC would be an overly expensive process; doctors’ visits, prescription costs, and deductible payments costs would add up to far more than such drugs would cost on the street.

Besides, these substances won’t fall into the hands of your stereotypical drug dealer anyway; most advocates, including NORML, are in favor of legal medicinal cannabis extracts being treated as any other prescription and requiring a doctor to sign off on its use.

Pedini reinforced this sentiment by saying, “Health care should be practiced by trained medical professionals, and in conference with the actual patient and the provider — not between a state senator.”

Sentiments were expressed by opponents of decriminalization at the recent decriminalization meeting held by the State Crime Commission, however – to the effect that “the leniency on one marijuana-related law will pave the way to full-blown legalization.” With the current makeup of the General Assembly, though, the fear of legalization has no merit, even after the recent shift bringing about a 50-50 split in the House of Delegates.

Statistics also have shown that in states with COL laws have no significant increase in marijuana use for both youth and young adult groups. A study in the journal Addiction recently found that increases in the use of marijuana amongst Oregon college students mainly occurred with students who were already likely to binge-drink. Students likely to abuse one legal drug may be likely to abuse another, but it seems everyone else’s usage stays about the same.

Make no mistake, I do believe that legalization for recreational use should occur. But this is an argument for another day.

It’s also intriguing to note that the report by the health commission features statistics showing that states with medical cannabis laws in place have a 25 percent reduction in opiate overdoses. “It is not a silver bullet to the opiate crisis, but it can play a very meaningful impact,” said Pedini.

Come November 21, the JCHC will meet to discuss policy options and bill options for the 2018 General Assembly. With the reports from both the JCHC and the State Crime Commission, Gov. McAuliffe signing SB 1027 allowing for the manufacturing of these extracts in-state, and Governor-Elect Ralph Northam — a former doctor- has expressed an “open mind” to marijuana reform — the ball is in our court.